Community Forum and Local Government Visit

Tarpeena Primary School

By Stephen Errock, Principal

Tarpeena Primary

Background

Tarpeena Primary School is a small school located in the south-east of South Australia. The school actively promotes 'student voice' and a range of programmes designed to maximise the involvement of students in the school activities. Comprising all upper primary students, the Student Executive takes responsibility for several programmes within the school and is an important component of the decision making process within the school.

Students organise, plan and conduct the daily 'Whole-school wellbeing programme' and the fortnightly 'Community groups programme', and prepare healthy snacks and food for the 'Active after school communities programme sessions' and the daily 'Fresh fruit programme' in the school.

Together with the Governing Council and staff, the Student Executive is involved in all decision-making processes within the school. It helps conduct school assemblies, organise special events, produce the twice-per-term Student Messenger newsletter and take responsibility for resolving some yard issues.

The Celebrating Democracy week activity is a regular feature of the Student Executive programme. In 2007, students decided to hold an open morning in the school where they conducted guided tours for parents, carers, media and special guests, explaining their role in the school and how the school operates. This was followed by a community forum at the Tarpeena football clubrooms organised, planned and conducted by the Student Executive.

At this forum, students presented history project work they had completed as part of the school's 'History and democracy programme' about local shipwrecks and their significance to our history. They also presented information to the community about democracy within the school and their role in the processes and invited discussion and feedback from community members. The students organised and catered for a celebration community barbecue lunch after the forum.

On another day during the week, students organised a visit to their local government offices to learn more about the role of local government in the community. These activities were all organised with the Celebrating Democracy theme at the core.

Aims of the Events

The events provided opportunities for students to plan and organise  community events that highlighted the importance of democratic processes in active citizenship. They also aimed to build on the 'History and democracy programme' in the school by exploring the role of local government in the community and establishing links to thelocal council. Through this process, the following specific objectives guided the students' work:

  • Developing organisational skills
  • Planning a community celebration event
  • Reporting on democratic processes to the community
  • Engaging the community with history and democracy processes in the school
  • Understanding the importance of history in determining the Australian democracy we have today
  • Developing public-speaking skills
  • Preparing a short presentation to the community
  • Developing an understanding of the conduct of a community event
  • Developing promotional materials
  • Developing contacts with and speaking to local media
  • Understanding the meaning of active citizenship.

The activities undertaken by students aimed to cover aspects of all five 'Essential Learnings' in the South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability Framework, including 'Futures', 'Identity', 'Interdependence', 'Thinking' and 'Communication', with particular emphasis on the last four of these.

The activities undertaken by students aimed to focus on the following key competencies:

  • KC1 - collecting, analysing and organising information
    • Surveys for catering, attendance
    • Timing of the events
    • Ordering food and utensils
  • KC2 - communicating ideas and information
    • Promoting the event in the community through posters
    • Media releases and follow-up
    • Invitations to special guests
    • Notices and newsletters to parents and carers
  • KC3 - planning and organising activities
    • Bookings for excursion to local government
    • Programme for celebration
    • Timing of events
    • Establishing timelines for organisation
    • Ordering food and materials
  • KC4 - working with others in teams
    • Working in groups to achieve organisational tasks
  • KC5 - using mathematical ideas and techniques
    • Surveys for ordering food
    • Calculating how much to order
  • KC6 - solving problems
    • Critical thinking during organisation phase
  • KC7 - using technology
    • Word processing
    • Developing PowerPoint displays
    • Setting up and using sound systems
Event Preparation

Students undertook the planning and preparation activities for the events. A brainstorming session identified the objectives of the events and the tasks that needed to be done to make it work. Students broke the events down into specific components and then selected the tasks they would undertake.

The specific components of the celebration were identified as an open morning at the school, a community forum at the local football clubrooms, a community celebration lunch and a local government excursion.

Tasks identified included creating and sending invitations to the celebration, planning guided tours for special guests, creating displays of student work in democracy and history, creating and printing official programmes, setting up for the forum, organising sound systems, calculating food and catering requirements, organising media releases and contacting media outlets, organising, distributing and collecting excursion permission slips, booking bus and venues for the excursion and organising lunch for the excursion. Generally, students worked in groups.

Students made all telephone, fax and personal contact with the local media, district council and suppliers. They were pleased to receive calls from the Prime Minister's office and email from the office of the Premier of South Australia, even though both were unable to attend the event. They booked the bus for their excursion and arranged a visit to the district council of Grant offices with the CEO of the council.

They also arranged to conduct a mock trial at the National Trust-listed Old Mount Gambier Courthouse as part of their work in the 'Discovering Democracy programme'. Information packs were prepared for special guests attending the celebrations. They included a range of school brochures and policies that highlighted the student voice programmes. Students organised the video camera equipment to record the community forum and delegated a student to take the footage of the event. They were able to get a copy of the resulting video presentation for their own records and memories.

On the morning of the celebration and community forum, students set up the local football clubrooms, arranging displays of student voice programmes, setting up seating arrangements, setting up audio visual displays and ensuring that catering arrangements were in place for the lunch. Following the events, students again packed up, cleaned up and returned the clubrooms to their regular setup.

In preparing for the excursion, students prepared a mock trial for their visit to the Old Courthouse, arranged the hire of a bus for the day, organised lunch and arranged with the school finance officer to get cheques for payment where necessary. In the mock trial, through brainstorming an offence, voting on which offence they would use, drawing names from a hat for roles in the trial and preparing their cases, the male school captain was charged and tried for terrorism offences in that he 'stink-bombed' our school! They arranged for their mock trial to be recorded on video.

The Implementation of the Events

Prior to the celebration, the student media group sent a media release and a media alert to local media. These were processed and faxed by students to our local ABC and commercial radio stations, the Border Watch newspaper and WIN Television. As a direct result of these initiatives, a story appeared in the newspaper and both radio stations ran stories in their local news segments. The ABC conducted an interview in the breakfast programme the day prior to the community forum and a WIN television news reporter and cameraman attended the event and interviewed our school captains for a segment on that evening's news service.

Invitations were sent to important members of the community. All special guests arrived during the open morning on Friday 17 August and were taken on guided tours of the school by members of the Student Executive before moving to the football clubrooms for the forum.

At the completion of the presentations, our local Member of Parliament, the Hon Rory McEwen, and Mayor Don Pegler addressed the students, parents and community members present to convey their congratulations for the work they had undertaken.

During the forum, each student spoke about their history project on local shipwrecks. This project was a part of the school's 'History and democracy programme', a three-year cycle of study about local, national and world history events and the development of democracy in Australia and the world. The programme is designed to link the important events of history and the development of democracy through interrelated study and was developed as a part of the national history project in 2005-06.

Members of the Student Executive made presentations about their 'student voice', 'Whole-school wellbeing' and 'Community groups' programmes and a presentation about how they conduct their fortnightly Student Executive Meetings following the project presentations. Feedback and discussion was invited from the parents, carers, community members and special guests in attendance. More than 100 people (25% of our community) attended the forum.

Students then arranged the celebration community lunch that had been prepared by adult volunteers organised by the Student Executive. The planning and organisation of the students was evident in the smooth conduct of the day's events.

On Monday 20 August, students travelled by bus to the offices of the District Council of Grant. They were met by the CEO, Mr Russell Peate, who took them to the Council Chambers, where he explained aspects of the role of the Council and engaged in discussion of questions asked by students.

Of particular importance in this visit was giving students information on how they can be active citizens in their own community through becoming involved in the activities of the Council's Youth Advisory committee. Mr. Peate congratulated the students on their participation in the community fundraising campaign to have a skate park built in Tarpeena. The Council provided morning tea for the students, who all tried out the Mayor's seat in the Council Chamber!

Following the Council visit, students moved to the National Trust heritage-listed Old Mount Gambier Courthouse where they were given an insight into the operations of the law in the early twentieth century before donning period costumes to conduct their mock trial of their School Captain Luke for 'stink bombing the school'!

Each student had a role to play in the court case and the jury of peers found Luke guilty after hearing all the evidence from 10 'witnesses'. The process of creating the mock trial was a great experience for the students and staff at the Courthouse commended them for their understanding of processes and the manner in which they had put their trial together. They also commented on the students phoning them to arrange the visit themselves, as this rarely happens.

The students followed up the morning's events with a barbecue lunch they organised at Umpherston Cave, an historic site in Mount Gambier with historical and interpretative displays about the timber industry, the major employer of families of Tarpeena Primary School.

Student Outcomes and Evaluation

Students are being assessed based on a rubric created for the event. This rubric was compiled with the students after their brainstorming session to plan the event and allocate jobs and prior to them commencing the work. They were then aware of the expectations of the whole group about how they would perform their respective jobs and what their timelines were.

It was decided that the assessment process would involve self-assessment against the rubric, peer assessment against the rubric and teacher assessment against the rubric. These three would then be combined to provide the final assessment. This process is continuing and will be completed in the next week.

The self-assessment involves students rating their own performance as a member of the organisational groups they were part of, together with their performance in the forum and mock trial. The peer assessment involves fellow students rating the performance of each group and individual performance in the forum and mock trial. The teacher assessment involves rating each student on their group work, individual work, commitment to the events and how well they worked to their own ability level. Ratings are based on a five-point scale.

The assessment process is based around the components of the 'key competencies and outcomes' in the areas of Mathematics, English and Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE) in the South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability Framework.

While the assessment process is not yet complete, early information indicates that students have been very successful. We believe this is because of the real-life learning experiences they have participated in over the past four weeks in preparing for the celebration and the meaning involved in their activities. This has become one of the school's major annual celebrations over the past three years and will continue to be a significant focus in future years.

Feedback

Students received positive feedback from a range of sources. Many students reported positive comments from parents and carers about their presentations and their role in organising the celebration events.

Rory McEwen, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests and Member for Mount Gambier, spoke to students at the completion of the presentations. He commented on the important role the school students played as members of the community in Tarpeena. He commended the students on their excellent standard of work and the effort they made in organising the events.

District Council of Grant Mayor Don Pegler also spoke to students during the community forum and stated how much his Council enjoyed receiving calls from students to make arrangements for visits or seek assistance for the school rather than from staff members. He said that this demonstrated a positive attitude towards their school and community and also demonstrated a positive understanding of the programmes they were involved in.

The WIN television news reporter stated that he had never interviewed student leaders from a primary school who were so knowledgeable about student leadership and aware of the reasons for the programmes they were involved in. He was impressed by the confidence of both students he spoke with.

ABC radio presenter Dorothy Fear conducted a lengthy interview at 7.15am on 16 August and expressed strong interest in the level of student voice and the involvement of students in the school programmes.

Several school principals who heard and saw the media coverage of the event passed on their positive support to staff and students about the programmes conducted that promote active citizenship and studies of history and democracy. Several schools have since contacted the school to seek copies of our policies and teaching plans in these important areas.

Conclusion

The process that our Student Executive has worked through to plan and organise the events for the Celebration of Democracy Week has been a wonderful real-life learning experience for them. They have provided information to the community they live in about how they are involved in the day-to-day decision-making processes of the school and how they conduct a range of programmes that promote citizenship and wellbeing.

This annual celebration provides a vehicle for students to showcase their 'student voice' processes and demonstrates to our whole community how they engage in regular activities in their day-to-day work at school to develop active citizenship.

In making the plans, contacting other organisations, informing and performing for local media, the students gained confidence in their ability as leaders and developed leadership skills that they can build on in future years. The Celebrating Democracy Week events have become a significant part of the school year for our community and make the events one of the largest community celebrations in the town of Tarpeena each year. The support from the Australian Government through the Curriculum Corporation enables students to maximise these opportunities and enhances learning outcomes.